


The Book of Beth

by happycookiie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria - Freeform, Angst, Canon Divergence, Daryl is sad for the fifty thousandth time, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Loss of love, Missing Scene, Remembering Beth, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycookiie/pseuds/happycookiie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl is not only given Beth's knife, but her journal too. He wants to read it, but can't. Because it'll mark her end in written ink, and he doesn't want to read that. He's never really liked reading, but that's the last thing he wants to read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Book of Beth

"It is not the length of life, but the depth of life." ~  _Ralph Waldo Emerson_

**.**

**.**

He's never really been all that into books.

Never been the reading kind, whether it be novels, comics, or just magazines.

Daryl's never found himself lost in another world, or in another person's thoughts, because it's silly. Silly to imagine impossible things upon turning a page. Silly to dare dream of a reality better than the one they live in.

Why?

Because it's  _fantasy_.

Plain and simple. Children's fairytales, unrealistic and worthless. And there's no point in wasting time reading four hundred or so pages of worthless.

So he just avoids books altogether. Passed up opportunities to read dirty shit Merle recommended, and spent his school days brushing off reading assignments before he eventually quit school completely. He'd never really needed a reason to read back home with his dad still around, so brushing it off then hadn't been a problem. But there were some times where Daryl would have to shamelessly shy away from a book that called to be read, and inside want to run away screaming:  _No, no. I won't be fooled._

And then the apocalypse happened, and Daryl didn't need a reason at all to pass up books anymore, because he was too busy fighting off the dead and keeping people safe. It was a good enough distraction, so he took it.

Now he's no literature major, but he's no retard either. So he  _can_ read, he just chooses not to.  _Fights_ not to. Because he knows that if he does, his head will just get filled with childish, worthless rubbish again that did jack-shit to save him from the long years of abuse. There were no fairies, no princesses, and no magic. Only cruel, bone-snapping reality.

He thinks he might never have to read again, and is glad of it...

But then  _she_ happens, and he's found himself in his ridiculous dilemma...

 _Beth_ happens.

 _"It was hers."_ was what Carol had said to him when handing him the knife.

 _Her_ knife. And he'd taken it in his hand, and curled it's fingers around the smooth handle. Then it's never left its side at his hip since. His piece of her, the only piece left...

Apart from...  _that_.

The bright green journal he'd also been given, that previously lived in the back pocket of her jeans when she was alive. The tiny book she'd scribble in from time to time, though scribble god knows  _what_ , and Daryl was stuck between wanting to know what was in it, and wanting to hurl it into the nearest walker's snapping jaws.

But he won't do that. Because it's another memento of her, along with the knife. Of what she was, and still is in his head.

He sits with it sometimes, just holding it in his lap when it's not in its new home in  _his_  back pocket, running a thumb along its torn spine. He flicks through the pages—never reading their contents—and feels the thin paper between his large fingers. Because this book is so small in comparison to them. So small like her. Delicate and colourful.

He wants to read what's inside, but can never bring himself to. Wants to see into her mind, and read the words she'd written during this time of pain and death... But can't.

 _Because she's gone_. And reading into her thoughts that are written in black and white in this book isn't going to change that. Isn't going to bring her back. If anything it'll just make it worse.  _The pain_ , that is. Deepen the wound. Intensify the sting. Like pouring salt into it.

But he still wants to.

He thinks about giving it to Maggie sometimes, like he does about the knife. Because if anyone will want to read what's written in the tiny green book, it's Maggie. Her  _sister_. The closest person in the world to her.

Maggie would open the book and read each page carefully, her tears dripping down onto the paper and staining the ink. He should give it and the knife to her really, like Carl did the music box. Give her as many pieces of Beth that was left, because she  _deserves_  them. Deserves every reminder of her stolen little sister she can get.

And what about him? He doesn't deserve them. Not at all. Because it's  _him_  who let her get taken in the first place. Taken to her beating, imprisonment, and finally to her death. It's his fault, and he doesn't deserve to keep her knife strapped at his waist or her journal sitting in his back pocket.

But he can't give them up. Because they're all that's left of her.

Things she's touched.

He has  _memories_ , like Maggie and everyone else does. Enough memories to make movies...  _And books_. But memories aren't enough. Because they'll fade eventually, into grey, uncertain images where the sounds and smells and appearances are eventually all forgotten over time.

At least with  _things_... They have a physical form. A physical appearance, and smell. And they bring on more memories that risk being forgotten at the sight of them.

He can touch the knife, and remember the times she used it to pierce an enemy's skull... Or he can run his thumb down the spine of the journal, and remember how she looked writing in it when he walked into her cell that day to tell her of Zach's demise.

He's never really liked reading... But this time he'll make an exception.

It's one quiet night they all lay asleep in their beds in Alexandria, and he sits on the porch outside in the dark; the wind cool and the sky dark with no stars in sight. Daryl doesn't think he's seen a star in the sky since the day he carried her lifeless body out of that hospital. Like their sorrow runs so deep, they just can't bring themselves to come out and shine anymore.

He doesn't blame them. If  _he_ was a star, he wouldn't come out and shine his light onto a world without Beth Greene.

Without her, there's only darkness.

And  _silence_.

Birds never sing anymore when he goes out to hunt, or when recruiting with Aaron. Animals hardly ever come out, unless he finds them later stuck in one of his traps,  _dead_.

Death is all there is now.

Fallen deer carcasses, dried up frogs, and Buttons the horse who even he couldn't escape that terrible fate... The inevitable. The thing that would happen to all of them, eventually. Sooner or later, they'd all be lifeless bodies breathing no air. Fighting no battle. Protecting no kin. Dreaming no dreams.

Daryl wasn't one for dreams as he wasn't for reading, but with Beth... Seeing her smile at a ladybug on a leaf, or watching her give a passing coyote a wave, or hearing her giggle... He thought that maybe... He could still have dreams.

Maybe he could still  _try_ , because the things he thought were stupid in books might not be all that stupid after all. He could try to find those dreams again.

 _I'm tryin'_.

But any dream he found when wandering the woods with Beth, teaching her to hunt and track, or watching her scribble a thank you note on the funeral home table with candlelight flickering across her features... Any dream he'd found then was now crushed into pieces that were thrown into oblivion, along with her.

Because any dream he'd found wasn't the same without her in it.

 _She_ was that dream.

And now she was gone, faded into a memory.  _Just like a dream._ Come morning, she was gone, and he was left empty and wanting.

But  _unlike_ most dreams, she had been real. He has the knife and journal to prove that, sitting in his lap with his fingers caressing them. She's still real to him, because she lives through these physical mementos.

So he opens the book on the first page and finally reads the words written.

Like he suspected, it's a diary.

A recording of her thoughts and the happenings of the occurrences of the world. Only it starts just after the turn, back on the farm a little after their group came.

The words are young, naïve even, and the handwriting is careful and neat. She speaks of her fear, her fear of everything. Fear of  _them,_ their group not the walkers.  _"There's still good people,"_ she'd said to him once. Her thoughts on their arrival at the farm didn't  _sound_  like she thought they were good people.

— _Something happened today. Something big. People came, lots of them. With guns and stories from the outside. Otis shot their little boy, Carl, I think he's called, so Daddy's treating him. I hope he's okay, and I hope none of his people take it out on Otis. He didn't mean to shoot him, I know. But one of the men, Shane, I heard Mr. Grimes call him keeps giving him this scary look. All of him's scary, I hope he doesn't stay long. I hope none of them have to stay long._

 _Any time soon, Patricia says, the army will come through and save us. Save the people in the barn... Save Mom and Shawn. I hope they're okay in the barn, it's stinky and cold at night. But Daddy said they're fine, so I guess I gotta believe him. It's just hard to believe now, to believe in God and everything else. I hope things get better soon._ —

Things never got better, Daryl thinks as he reads through the pages. They only got worse, and keep getting worse.

The Beth at the start of the journal is different to the one he came to know when running in the woods. She's younger, more nurtured,  _weaker_. She's afraid of a lot of things, and clearly depressed.

But she'll get through it. She'll overcome it and become the Beth that told him that you had to put things like that away. Become  _stronger_... No, not  _become_  stronger. More like she'll  _see_  the strength she's had tucked away inside her all this time, and unleash it...

Then she'll die.

The books he knew the ending to were the ones he stayed away from the most, because every word and sentence was foreshadowing. Foreshadowing of what was to come. And Daryl knew the ending to this book, but he thought if he just kept reading... Maybe this time the ending would be different. Maybe.

— _Monsters came and destroyed the farm, burned it to the ground and nearly wiped us out. Mom and Shawn got killed when Shane opened the barn, and Otis never came back from a supply run. And now Patricia is dead too, all because I couldn't pull her away from those things in time. So now, it's just me, Daddy, and Maggie. And the others from the group of course, but they're still strange and a little scary. Especially Shane and the guy with the crossbow, but they're protecting us. We have to protect each other.—_

Protect each other they did that long, harsh winter on the road. Scavenging houses and wherever they could find food, sleeping huddled together like hibernating animals...  _Protecting each other._

Until Daryl failed to protect her.

— _After the farm, we were always moving. But something happened. Something good. Finally. We found a prison. Daddy thinks that we can make it into a home. He says we can grow crops in the field, find pigs and chickens, stop running, stop scavenging. Lori's baby is just about due. She'll need a safe place when it comes. The rest of us, we just need a safe place to be._

_I woke up in my own bed yesterday. My own bed in my own room. But I've been keeping my bag packed. Keeping my gun close. I've been afraid to get my hopes up thinking we can actually stay here. The thing is, I've been starting to get afraid that it's easier just to be afraid. But this morning Daddy said something. "If you don't have hope, what's the point of living?" So I unpacked my bag and I found you. So I'm gonna start writing in you again. And I'm gonna write this down now because you should write down wishes to make them come true._

_We can live here. We can live here... For the rest of our lives.—_

Every word feels like a sharp stab in Daryl's chest, and it's no longer his voice he hears reading the words. It's hers.

Her voice. Her growing strength.

Her hope.

 _He's_ mentioned more than before this time, and his heart aches at the words she's written. Words she's written for  _him_. Words of admiration, softness, anger for his leaving, and  _understanding_. The way she understands always blows him away, how she understands everything so well. And now he thinks he understands  _her_ a little better because of this damned book.

She watches, ponders,  _sees_. So many things none of them do. She sees so many things in each of them,  _loves_ them all in different ways. And she understands so well. So well it hurts.

— _Daryl brought his brother back with him. Merle, he's called. He's a jerk. Mouthy, rude, and he talks to Daryl like he's something less than he is. Like he's nothing. What a jerk. He was fighting with Glenn and Michonne, and I just got so mad at him so I fired my gun and split them up. That makes me sound more badass than I was, but it's what happened, kinda. I just wish Merle wasn't such a jerk all of the time._

_But for some reason, I think there's more to it than that. I think there's something hidden under that jerk attitude and rude mouth. Like Daryl. I think he can be a good man, he's just afraid to let himself be one. Because all his life he's had to fight so hard not to be one. He needs to know that he can be one. That it's alright._

_People say he's just an asshole. But I don't believe that. Daryl might have to put up with him just because he's his brother, but there's a reason he loves him. Because not everyone loves their family. You choose to love them. It's a choice. And Daryl chooses to love his brother. So I gotta try see too. We all do.—_

If there are tears building in Daryl's eyes, he blinks them away and grunts, turning the page roughly, but wincing at the tear in the page he makes by accident.

The handwriting is less neat than at first, more scrawly and rushed. And her words are bigger somehow,  _bolder_. Like she's grown. Into something brighter, something stronger. Like she's finally found the hem of what's inside of her, and is tugging at it. Pulling, trying to get it out. But she just needs that one final push to drag it out completely. And it'll come.

 _You choose to love them_ , she said. But he's pretty sure he didn't choose to feel the way he does about her.

Why would anyone choose to feel such raw pain every waking moment to the moment before they fell back to sleep again. Why would they  _choose_ pain?

The answer isn't far in Beth's scribbling.

She always has all the answers.

— _People are getting sick. Daddy is trying to help them, but I'm scared. And Maggie is too, because Glenn's got sick too, and he's not getting better. She comes to talk to me sometimes, through the closed door I'm basically quarantined in with Judy. Tells me it's the worst kinda pain she's ever felt, Glenn being in danger like he is, and that she wants it to stop. But I said..._

_Pain is feeling. It proves that you're still alive, that you still care. That you're here._

_It's okay to feel. It's okay to care. It keeps you sane. Stops you from going crazy. People need to know that it's okay to care. That it's not something that gets in the way of surviving. Sure it's painful, and you get hurt sometimes. But like I said to Michonne. When you care, hurt comes in the package.—_

The tears won't blink away now, and Daryl's vision is wobbly and unclear.

He shakes on his seat on the porch, similar to that time he'd sat with her drinking old moonshine that could make them go blind, and Daryl wishes he  _had_ gone blind. Because if he had, he wouldn't have had to see the way she looked slumped out in a heap on the hospital hall, her own blood pooled around her in a sea of red. Wouldn't have had to see the light fade from her eyes, and the way she looked just like a little broken doll in his arms as he carried her down all those flights of stairs...

Wouldn't have had to see the way she smiled at him from across the table, the light from the candles shining in her big doe eyes. Because without that, there isn't much worth seeing anymore.

He's never liked reading.

Never cared for the hopeless dreams the pages spouted, or silly romances played out that either ended in tragedy or a cheesy happy ending.

But there's nothing cheesy about a happy ending for Beth. She deserved it. More than anyone.

More than him.

He reads the part where the prison fell, and it's just her and him now, alone in the wilderness, with grief and their thoughts consuming them.

 _'Daryl is a jerk'_ appears in this section quite frequently, and he wants to laugh at the cruel non-hilarity of it. He also finds himself  _agreeing_  with her when seeing from her point of view.

He  _is_  a jerk. Just like Merle. But she can't see though him like she did with Merle anymore. Not anymore...

She must not have had or written in the journal in the hospital in Atlanta, because the entries end when she's still with him.  _Before she's taken._ So it's kind of a happy ending where she stops writing, to a  _stranger_  who'd read it... Only he's  _not_ a stranger. And he knows the end to this story.

— _More days pass, and we still haven't found any of the others. Maybe Daryl is right. Maybe they're not out there. But then... Maybe they are. We'll never know, I think that's the hardest part. But even though it might just be the two of us for the rest of our lives, like we're the last people left on earth. It's okay. Because we're okay. And we always will be as long as we have something to hold onto. It may not be a prison, or our family, or a goal... But we have each other. And that's something._

_We're friends. Partners, I guess. Maybe that's not all of it, but I don't think I can write all of it down yet. It's complicated. But it's okay. Because we have time. Time to work it out, time to keep going, even if we don't know where we're going yet._

_Time to live. Still.—_

And that's where the entries cease, and Daryl closes the tiny book and lets it fall down into his lap. Time is the last thing any of them had. Especially her. There's no time left for any of them, and they can try to think otherwise all they like... But it won't change anything.

Won't change the fact that the good ones just can't survive.

 _No one_ can survive something like this.

Because if Beth Greene couldn't, then Daryl didn't think there was anyone in the world who could. No one could come back from something like this as a whole.

He thinks of signing the end  _for_  her, since she can't do it herself. Thinks of writing: — _RIP_ or — _The End..._ But he can't bring himself to. Because that marks the end in written ink.  _Set in stone_.

 _He_ might know the ending, but that doesn't mean anyone else who reads this has to. There can still be happy endings... Even if this wasn't one of them.

Maybe Daryl could make one. For her. Like she'd want him to. Make himself a happy ending that would make her smile at him with her big glittering eyes. Because he can't hold on to this forever. He has to put it away eventually, before it kills him.

But that doesn't mean he has to  _forget_. Forget what she was, and what she taught him.  _Forget the thing that hurt you, but don't forget what you learned from it._ she'd told him once.

 _...Don't forget_ me _._

So he just holds the journal in his hands and stares out into the dark.

He's never really liked reading. But this isn't like reading some corny fantasy novel with a cliché ending.

This is reading Beth.

And that's okay. He can make it okay.

Maybe.


End file.
